AirPlay over ASUS RT-N56U

Had airplay problem myself after I upgraded to firmware 3.xx regarding the router (same as yours).

Disabled IGMP snooping and then it works.

In router settings:

• Wireless
• Professional
• Disable IGMP snooping for both 2,4GHz and 5GHz
• Apply

BR Linus

I came here, because I had the following issue. My iPhone is connected to 2.4GHz and iPad, MacBook to 5GHz. iPhone had no problems with Airplay from day 1 I bought the router. MacBook constantly was loosing AirPlay (turning WiFi on and off solved issue for a hour or so), iPad had no Airplay botton at all.

After reading all this thread, I decided to compare the setting in "Proffesional" tab for the difference. And I found, that 2.4GHz had "Multicast rate" disabled. Changed this in 5Ghz and it started working in iPad.

All settings (hope it helps):

I had the exact same problem. The 3.xxx firmware seems to have trouble with AirPlay. My router fortunately had an older version of the firmware (1.0.1.7f) originally, so I knew it worked fine. I tried termosen's response, but to my surprise IGMP snooping was already disabled for both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz spectrums. I advise using Asus' firmware restoration utility (available at the same place as the firmware under Utilities) to downgrade to mine. It is a bit technical. You need a windows computer to run the utility, you will have to direclty plug your laptop into the router via ethernet (a LAN port, not a WAN port), and then place the router in rescue mode (by unplugging the power, holding down the reset button, and plugging it back in; don't release until the power light is slowly flashing), and then running the utility. Since restoring, my AirPlay works fine. Hope this helps.

have this same exact issue. its weird because if I reboot the router it will work until I stop streaming media again. I tried enabling to see if it holds for me...then ill disable. has anyone reported to asus?

UNKNOVVN,

My problem manifested in exactly the same way. Sometimes the airplay would return on its own. And I doubt ASUS pays much attention to these problems. They likely affect a small percentage of users due to minor variations in the hardware. So any fix would take a long time to come.

Hi, I had the exact same problem on my Asus RT-N56u and found that enabling "Multicast" traffic fixed it for all my devices (iPhone and iPad). The Asus blocks multicast traffic even over the LAN by default.

iTunes and the devices advertise themselves on a single multicast address of 224.0.0.251 and this was being completely blocked by the Asus router, hence the devices couldn't find each other.

I was in the fortunate position of having two wireless routers and realised that when one worked flawlessly and the Asus didn't that it was definitely something to do with networking and NOT iTunes and my devices.

This could potentially apply to many peoples scenarios on differnet routers. Find the setting that deals with Multicast traffic and make sure it is enabled or allowing multicast traffic and hopefully you'll be sorted.

I used your advice and enabled multicast for both 2.4 and 5 ghz under Wireless > Professional > Multicast to HTMIX 130/144 and not only did it work but music magically started playing through my remote speakers as soon as I applied the settings.

Thanks so much!

3.0.0.4.360 - I once had it drop out but I think it was my laptop was too far away. When I came back closer to the router it wouldn't reconnect, but finally did right away when I turned the wifi on my Mac off and then on again.

I belive I've found the fix!

Enable IGMP Snooping

Here's how:

Wireless (left hand panel-->Professional (tab)-->Enable IGMP Snooping (in the middle of page)

Since I enabled this I haven't had any issues.

Neither davebrook nor andrew132 have discovered a fix. Both of these "fixes" are documented elsewhere, where you can see that they do not end up working. Andrew132 is not located too far from the router. The multicast setting did not fix the problem. It appeared to be fixed, but in reality it was just a coincidence. The fact that you had to turn the wifi on and off shows this to be the case. Furthermore, while I can't tell what either of you did to test, everyone should be aware that the fact that the airplay icon appears in Finder does not mean that that it is working. Often the icon persists after the actual ability to airplay is lost by the router.

The IGMP snooping merely resets the router and that temporarily fixes the problem. In any case, even if these were genuine workarounds, they would still be just that. A fix would not require you to do anything. That's why ASUS should step up here and actually fix the problem. Airplay is a standard, widely used protocol that should be supported by default.

I personally just went back to the update that was before my problem started. I use this daily and recognized exactly when it started happening. By reverting to the update prior to nov last year it has worked flawlessly ever since. I had tried the newest update with all the IGMP snooping and multicast updates but they did not resolve my issues more than a reset would. since reverting I use it daily and actually using it now without any issues. besides the new graphical interface I did not see any benefit from the newer firmware anyway.

if you read the changelogs from ASUS it states in multple they were trying to improve airplay however upon chatting with ASUS they suggested that I revert. I would highly recommend that everyone here also escalates their issue with ASUS as our fix will come from ASUS not Apple.

This was wierd. I've had my RT-N56U for almost a year now and never had any problems using AirPlay, but recently this exact problem cropped up for me. I hadn't updated my firmware in a long while so not sure why it suddenly emerged. My ATV2 and ATV3 would sometimes show up on my iDevices, then other times they wouldn't. If I was streaming music suddenly it would just cut out then iTunes would tell me that the ATV cannot be found. Interesting though, when my ATV2 was running XBMC, which has it's on AirPlay setting, I was able to see it from my other devices and push content to it (it appears as 'Apple TV2 (XBMC)', despite the native iOS AirPlay failing to be detected from my iDevices.

Anyway, for me the fix involved only changing the 'Enable IGMP Snooping' setting in firmware version 3.0.0.4.374_130. The default setting on both 2.4 and 5.0 Ghz was 'Disable'. I changed both to 'Enable' and voila! 'Apple TV2' and 'Apple TV3' are both available for AirPlay again.

The article in the link below has some other settings tweaks, but for me changing the IGMP snooping setting seems to have been sufficient. Hopefully it will hold! If not I will change some more settings as per the article;

http://bendera.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/asus-rt-n56u-settings-for-airplay.html

Enabling IGMP Snooping, whatever the **** that is, worked for me. I enabled both 2.4 and 5 and I now have AirPlay icon back on MacBook and iPhone.

The latest firmware update issued on 08/20/13, 3.0.0.4.374_239, appeared to disable my AirPlay capabilities. No other firmware update had done this before and I've updated my RT-N56U for 2.5 years.

By the way, I emailed Asus technical support and the response was head-shaking. It made no sense. Language barrier? Waste of time emailing them.

I have fought with this problem for a long time now. I have seen many people suggest changes to settings thinking the problem is fixed. My impression is that the ASUS just resets when you make a change and that clears up the problem Temporarily.

I have found one workaround that fixes the problem and as long as you don't make any changes to your Asus router it should stay working. The other day i turned on QOS on my router and it broke my homesharing. When i turned it off it stayed broken. I reset the router and it stayed broken. Here is the fix i use to get my apple home share back and working.

1. I go to the wifi network that my apple devices are on. In my case i am using the 2.4Ghz becuase of some older devices.

2. I turn off all security and encryption on the wifi network setting it to "open system"

3. Reconnect my iOS devices to the open network. apple tv, phone, macbook etc.

4. Home sharing should now be again working (but you don't want to leave your wifi open).

5. Go back to your network settings and change your wifi security back to your preferred setting. I use WPA2 -personal

6. Go to your iOs devices and reconnect them to your wifi network (you will likely have to enter in the passwords again)

7. once all you devices are connected you should be all good and homesharing should work again.

A couple foot notes

a. At the time of this typing i was using the latest firmware on the asus 3.0.0.4.374.239

b. if you don't want to break your setup again DO NOT change any settings in the Asus. I find that when i change some settings (regardless of what they are) it will cause the homesharing or airplay network to collapse again.

I know the problem is not with my apple devices but with my router. I still have my old router and when i plug it in the problem never occurs. Becuase my old router is so old i needed a faster router for apple tv and bought the asus. IT was good for some time and then started causeing to drop the homesharing network. For a while i could reboot the router and it would fix the problem but one day that stopped working.

It is a pain but at least if you can get your apple home share network up and not fidget with it you can watch and listen to content when you want.

I regret buying this router and wish someone could tell me technically why this problem happens. I am in the IT industry and i can't figure it out but i think it is just buggy software.